![]() ![]() ''The readers are aging with the owners,'' says Martin S. ''The corner video store has made a big difference for these magazines.'' Playboy and Penthouse have also seen their circulations plummet in recent years. The skin-magazine business generally is ''not as hugely profitable as it was,'' said Reed Phillips, a principal in DeSilva & Phillips, a New York investment bank that advises media companies. But these days Hustler's press run is less than a million copies, and on average more than half are returned unsold, according to the 1996 statement of ownership on file at the Long Beach, Calif., postal service branch, where the company is required to submit audited figures to receive second-class postage privileges. ![]() The flagship, Hustler, sold two million copies a month in 1976. Retrenching to this hard-core core is a risky strategy at a time when large chunks of the readership are finding the same photography and mindset through other media - often for less.Ĭirculation is down, an especially damaging situation for a company that relies heavily on single-copy sales, rather than subscription or ad sales, for its estimated $100 million annual revenue. The new focus: a group of 20 titles that - with a few relatively staid exceptions like PC Laptop and the music-oriented Rap Pages - is skewed toward sexually explicit publications like Leg World and Busty. Within the last 18 months, the company has sold or closed a handful of magazines created for a more mainstream market, like Super Cycle and Maternity Fashions. ![]() Hollywood limelight aside, Larry Flynt Publishing Inc., solely owned by its namesake, is so secretive that financial information on the company is as wispy as the clothing on a centerfold model. ![]() Flynt's operation seems to be falling behind in the swiftly evolving X-rated market. He has been placing increasing emphasis on what is euphemistically called the ''men's sophisticates'' magazine category, even as the cost of renting a raunchy video can be cheaper than the $5.99 cover price of Hustler and as sexually explicit cable television channels and Web sites vie for his target audience. Flynt's empire can use any free help it gets. Larry Flynt.'' But as Larry Flynt himself has observed, it might have been called ''$60 Million Worth of Free Advertising.'' The movie appeared in theaters as ''The People vs. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
February 2023
Categories |